In a trio of keynote addresses, the largest gathering in the 25-year history of the North American Interfaith Network was challenged to take the political action needed to make the Golden Rule something more than a gentle scolding for children.
“Each faith you believe in teaches that you treat other people as you want to be treated,” said Shahid Akhtar, the founder and director of Conciliators Without Borders.
“But you have to translate that into something — into a road map.”
“Any change we make, whether it’s in the Church or wherever, it’s political,” said Uzma Shakir, City of Toronto director of equity, diversity and human rights. “And people say they don’t want to be political. But we have to be.”
That this year’s conference coincides with the anniversary of an anti-Semitic riot in Toronto 80 years ago is just coincidence, but a coincidence few were willing to ignore.
“In this work we take 10 steps forward and nine steps back,” said Karen Mock, former national director of the League for Human Rights of B’nai Brith Canada.
In the midst of the Great Depression a semi-final baseball game that featured a Jewish team up against a Catholic team ended in fist fights, brass knuckles and knives drawn when the Pit Gang displayed a large swastika after the final out.
Though no one was killed among as many as 10,000 rioters, several combatants wound up in hospital.
The Italian supporters of the St. Peter’s team joined with Jewish supporters of the Harbord Playground team in attacking gang members flying the swastika. At the time Toronto beaches and private clubs were closed to Jews and the city was divided over the recent election of Adolf Hitler and his National Socialist German Workers’ Party in Germany.
More than 70 per cent of people who attended the Aug. 11-14 conference at the University of Toronto came from outside the Greater Toronto Area and gave a chance for people with a shared interest in interfaith dialogue to learn, said Bobby Lewis from Detroit.
“I’m looking for ideas,” she said. “We’re not trying to convince each other of anything. I think we’re trying to learn from each other.”
Julie Sheets-Willard from Philadelphia believes the interfaith movement is commanding more attention and support.
“These are the folks who are trying to spread the ripple,” said Sheets-Willard.
Sheets-Willard works for the Dialogue Institute, based on the campus of Temple University. The organization publishes the Journal of Ecumenical Studies and offers students an opportunity to be part of interfaith dialogue. Started in the wake of the Second Vatican Council, the Dialogue Institute has been engaged in “very lonely work for a long time,” said Sheets- Willard.
“It’s easy to do dialogue with people who think it’s a good idea,” she said.
“It’s difficult to do it with people who wouldn’t be caught dead doing it.”
Susan Sullivan from Washington, D.C,. said she was attending simply because interfaith dialogue is essential.
“The future of the world depends on all of us being able to talk to each other and all of us being able to understand each other,” she said.